Battle Report - WT: Battle for Takwoo

Intro:	The island of Takwoo, some 500 miles SSW of Okinawa has been
targeted as the next stepping stone of the Island hopping campaign.
Located near enough to Okinawa to allow Dive bombers to attack, Takwoo
is
considered vital to the American plan of bombing the Japanese homeland.
To this end several battleships as well as a carrier task force
have been dispatched to anniliate any shore defenses and knock out the
airfield.  However, since there are no other strategic targets in the
area, the Japanese were able to discern the American intentions and
began
a rapid, but hasty reinforcement of the island.

American Forces:

Task Force 61 
	Carrier Yorktown - 72 aircraft embarked
	Cruiser Cleveland
	3 Fletcher Class Destroyers - DD 473, DD 480, DD 479

Task Force 62
	Battleship Iowa
	Battleship South Dakota
	Cruiser Louisville
	Cruiser Indianapolis
	3 Fletcher Class Destroyers - DD 539, DD 536, DD 534

Japanese Forces 

Takwoo garrison
	Shinmen Airfield -	6 squadrons of fighters 
				6 squadrons of DB
				6 squadrons of TB
				4 4-arc AA C batts
				3 PDAF
				3 Launch/recovery facilities
			Airfield has 3 rows of damage, 8 boxes per row

	Shore Batteries
			8, 1-arc A batteries, two per side
			8, 1-arc B batteries, two per side
			Fortified positions, ten points per row, two
damage rows

 Task Force Takezo
	Battleship Yamoto
	Battleship Nagato
	6 Japanese Destroyers - DD Ushio, Akebono, Wakaba, Sazanmi,
Hatsuharu, Hatsushimo

Early Turns:
	The American task forces arrived from the NE side of the island
with the carrier Yorktown completing flight operations 10 miles to the
west.  American radar detected a large flight of aircraft forming over
the
island.  Yorktown dispatched its three fighter squadrons to fly CAP.
As the Iowa and S. Dakota approached the island, they opened up with A
and
B turrets, raining 16 inch shells on the island's northern
fortifications.
A Japanese task force was detected approaching from the SE at top speed.

Middle turns:
	As the American battlships turned to port heading due S, the
cruisers took up AA positions two miles to their W, shielding them from
the growing cloud of Japanese planes.  The American destroyers raced
ahead
in an attempt to engage the rapidly approaching Japanese Task Force. 
The
Yorktown continued to Launch planes, finally getting all the dive
bombers
into the air.  The cruiser Cleveland, approaching the island too closely
came under fire from heavy bore shore batteries and was damaged.

Late Turns:  Continual fire from the American Battleships annililate the
Islands East fortifications, but the airfield remained unscathed and the
full complement of bombers swarmed outward.  The battleship Yamato had
pulled ahead of the slower Kongo and cleared the Northern edge of the
island and began long range shelling of the S. Dakota.	American fire
was
diverted from the island towards the lagging Kongo.  Meanwhile
destroyers
and cruisers were being crippled on both sides by a combination of 6"
fire
and the occasional salvo from a battlship.  The Yorktown, attempting to
flee, was hit by an 18" shell from the Yamoto, knocking out the rear
half
of the flight deck.  Torpedo bombers were still being launched from the
forward catapults even as another shell struck home, damaging the
turbines.  A final salvo breached the hull and the Yorktown sank soon
after.

End Turns:  While the Americans concentrated their fire on the Kongo the
Japanese swarmed them with over sixty aircraft.  The Iowa took a dozen
bomb hits with only 4 causing significant damage, however the engines
were
damaged and many of the secondary batteries were put out of action.  A
salvo from the Yamoto soon crippled the Iowa which was motionless in the
water.	Now within range of the island's Southern batteries, the Iowa
traded shots with the shore batteries while the S. Dakota attempted to
finish off the Kongo.  In a high speed flanking maneuver the Yamoto
sailed
to the North and finally East of the American battlships while the Kongo
tried to cut the corner of the island and close the range to the
American
battleships.  Several minutes after the Iowa finally succumbed to
combined
attacks from the Kongo and shore batteries, the South Dakota was reduced
to a burning hulk as the Yamoto closed to medium range and at at range
of
less than 15,000 yards the Yamoto sent salvo after salvo of 18" shells
ripping into the S. Dakota.  The Kongo was eventually sunk as a dying
gesture of the S. Dakota but already the Japanese bombers had refuled
and
re-armed and were preparing another strike...

The results:
	Total loss for the Americans - two battleships, a carrier, three
cruisers and half a dozen destroyers were all sunk.  Japanese losses
were
2 dozen planes, three destroyers and the battleship Kongo with 2 of the
4
sides of the island being knocked out.	The airfield was still
operational
and the Yamoto suffered minor damage (only the armor row was knocked
out)

Comments:  This game was played with three players took 20 turns and was
completed in 3 hours.  Some of the tactics were odd since morale rules
were not in effect (DD's and CA's were invariably targeted first,
although their contribution to the long range gun battles was nil)
Aircraft are powerful in that they are difficult to stop but this is
counter balanced by their low hit ratio (60 attacks, 12 hits, only 4
doing
damage on a battleship)  Aircraft died quickly in the presence of
fighters
and refueling/reloading played a significant role since the bombers
basically only had one opportunity to attack in 20 turns.  The scenario
probably would have turned out differently had the full forces been
used.
Due to player constraints I dropped the Wisconsin, 3 more cruisers and 6
DD's and for the japanese a cruiser squadron.  As a tactical note, the
Yorktown was deployed too close to the island and when confronted with
the
Yamoto, was destroyed very quickly.  Improvements to the scenario will
include better starting positioning, full deployment of all the forces,
implementation of morale rules (at 2 threshold checks, capital ships
must
begin to retreat) and a reduction in the number of Japanese planes.

Any comments or interest in the Wet Thrust rules conversion is welcome.

--Binhan